runners gain from the spectators. They witness a very long-running show, a movie that goes on for hours, with individual struggles and heroics every mile. Marathon day is an annual party, a city holiday. Many will claim that their inspiration for running came from watching the event the year before. Marathon day is as good a time as New Year’s day to form resolutions. Inspiration, one finds, is reciprocal.

PHOTO RUN

At the New York City Marathon, an estimated two million fans embrace the efforts of strangers.

CITY REAPS REWARDS

The city itself reaps the rewards of hosting a huge marathon. Steinfeld has served as a consultant to many other marathons in many other cities. And he has always shunned the idea of having a marathon in some out-of-the-way location. “You can’t bring people to the marathon. You have to bring the marathon to the people. I always advise cities to put the course through the various neighborhoods, through the downtown. And if there are traffic tie-ups, so what?”

The Los Angeles Marathon course, which threads through many neighborhoods, offers South Central an opportunity to prove that bad public relations be damned, it is a very welcoming place.

When a course ends in front of a palace, as the London Marathon does— at Buckingham Palace—the city surely earns tourist dollars from marathoners and their families. Different cities have unique sights to see and diverse populations to experience, and marathoners appreciate that. A well-known race then attracts TV coverage, and the city looks pretty spiffy on the air. Trees are pruned, potholes get filled along the route. Mayors take the success of their city’s marathon as a personal triumph.

As a result, the local population is aware—and proud—of the race. Walk into a beauty salon, a school, a construction site, a restaurant, and the residents

are ready to talk marathon and pick their favorites. Running grows more popular—it becomes more and more of a grassroots movement.

When the excitement is inescapable for even the marathon chauvinist, the “race-ist,” then a megamarathon helps bring running into the mainstream. The megamarathon has mass appeal and makes it not only all right to run, but also the height of fashion. Everyone is doing it, or knows someone who is doing it—either the hairdresser or the waiter or the teacher or the daughter of the boss. Running finally makes its way onto the sports page, and in so doing, gains legitimacy in a way that a smaller event in a remote corner of the country never could.

“BIG” IS BIG NEWS

News of big marathons spreads to remote places, especially when elite athletes are involved. When Tegla Loroupe won her debut marathon in New York City in 1994, word of her victory made it home to Africa quickly, and public opinion about women running changed swiftly. Loroupe had previously been discouraged from running by gossiping neighbors and members of her tribe who thought it was inappropriate for women to devote themselves to athletics. It took a mere two hours, 27 minutes, and 37 seconds for the 4’11”, 21-year-old Kenyan to begin to dismantle a system of belief that had prevailed in her country. In 1995, when she won New York again, Kenyans greeted Tegla at home with a hero’s parade.

Similarly, the 1994 New York City Marathon men’s winner, German Silva of Mexico, returned to his country and met with government officials eager to congratulate him. The result of that meeting was that Silva’s hometown was wired for electricity. The consequences of winning a megarace can extend far beyond individual profits.

When Tegla Loroupe returned to New York in 1996 in an attempt to threepeat, she told the press, “In Kenya, they don’t write about the Olympics in the newspapers. But they write about the New York City Marathon.”

The more likely scenario is that Kenyan newspapers now report whatever events Loroupe attends.

New champions are made at really large marathons; winning establishes world-wide reputations. At the same time, already-famous champions return to reputable races.

BIG NAMES AT BIG RACES

Olympic medalists and world champions do not enter obscure marathons. They come to major marathons seeking great competition, and they find each other

Sarah Lorge BIGISBETTER mm 77

at megamarathons. Fast times and great duels are expected and rewarded. The starting line is an extensive exhibition of talent, with any number of runners poised to set course records, national records, world records. Elite athletes find generous prize purses, high visibility, and prestige. In 1991, Joan Benoit Samuelson commented, “It would mean more for me to win New York than to come back and do another Olympic marathon.”

But that’s just it about megamarathons. They mean more. Everyone who participates, whether spectating or running, at 5-minutesper-mile or 15-minutes-per-mile pace, finds that the experience is greater than they bargained for. It is more than just running.

Anevent with thousands of entrants takes RUN on greater significance than the physical feat Tegla Loroupe’s 1994 victory _ of covering 26.2 miles by foot. There is an at New York changed public added intangible quality that is difficult to cereale Afr ica about pinpoint. It is an emotional thing, this runwomen running. ning business. There have been more than a

few misty-eyed spectators, overwhelmed by watching the efforts of everyday people. And tears from the runners who cross the finish line and hate to see the race end.

They finish amegamarathon, and they say they feel connected to something bigger than a mere race—and they are. They can’t help themselves. Multiply the power of running by 25,000, and it equals a happening—a very memorable happening. Bs

Here are just some of the features you can expect in the July issue of Marathon & Beyond:

e 20 Years at Death Valley

° The Art of the Taper

¢ The Last Olympic Marathoner How to Use Your Heart Rate as a Tachometer Course Profile: Philadelphia Marathon